Soul Curry...

Waking up in the middle of the night, I was wide awake.  Turning and tossing, I lazed there for a while, waiting for the faint rays of sunlight.  Sleep what otherwise would linger at that odd hour wasn’t there at those wee hours on that day. Neither the twilight came in through the curtain nor did the morning serene sleep.  Instead I started feeling a squeeze in my stomach, an unfathomable pain in my heart!  I had to force myself to rise from the bed and get on with my chores to put aside the restlessness.  As I walked to the veranda and saw the time, I was quite taken aback to see the clock ticking 3.35 am.  Waking up at this odd hour and being so wide awake was something I never had experienced before.  The uneasiness in me increased.  I went to the kitchen for a glass of water.  As I got back to my room, a strange feeling started to overpower me as with the sudden reminder of my father’s death news that came around at this hour fifteen years back.

Thirty minutes elapsed. I sat there in the darkness of the night on the bed beside my husband who also seemed not so comfortable.  Just then his phone rang. It was one of our family friends, from my hometown.  My heart beat raced when I heard my husband over the call, saying,

Hmm ..OK…OK… break the door and try to get into the house.

I could obviously sense that something serious, something weird and something unexpected befell us.   Without even telling me what it was, he searched for a number gesturing me to get a glass of water.  I continued to stand there watching him as he dialed a number and the rings were just passing by unanswered.  His face was turning into a taut, his eyebrows frowned.  By the time I came into the room with a glass of water, he had already dialed a few times.

 

“Ayee is not receiving the call….. “ He said.

“Let’s get ready; I think we need to rush. I’ll wake the kids up” I said with some women instinct. 

“Wait. Don’t hurry”

Few calls exchanged but there was no hint of what had happened.  As we waited for the news, few phone calls exchanged.  My sister-in-law mentioned confidently that nothing was wrong, and confirmed that her son got the medical tests done last evening and everything was pretty normal.  Maybe it is the fasting that has affected her health making her feel nauseous, she said reassuringly.   

“She is unconscious” came, the response from our family friend who managed to call some of his friends and was successful in getting into the house.   Seeing her unconscious, they headed to the hospital calling in an ambulance.  

I shuddered with the rave thoughts that kept creeping for some time.  I had to struggle hard to hide my tears.  No, nothing can possibly happen in such a short duration, I kept repeating to myself, secretly praying some silent prayers, hushing to the strange question kids came up with, what if grandma dies.   

“Brain hemorrhage” The doctor suspected.  Advising to inform her dear and near ones, he suggested taking her to super specialty hospital at Manipal.  (A hospital in Karnataka)

We had to travel eight hours to reach Manipal.

 

“Why do you have to be all alone?”

I had asked her just a few days back when she visited us and we both were in the kitchen, she, helping me in cutting the vegetables,  and me preparing her favourite dishes as had never been in the past due to my demanding career. 

“Till I feel I can be independent…”

She had answered, for which, I had said trying my best to convince her to come and stay with us and most importantly trying hard not to lessen her confidence.  

“Of course you are right, but all these years you have been all alone and you turning 68 soon, it seems quite risky…’

She was full of tears hearing me. 

“I can always come here whenever I feel so……”

We both had spent good amount of time reminiscing the past, good and bad old days.  Also on some future plans I came up with to soothe her.  And that became her last ever visit.  But for me, it was my first ever trial and service to her as a devoted daughter-in-law, being a home-maker that I chose to be recently.   

“May be she is extremely tired and nervous.  Once we reach, she will recover.   Let’s not leave her alone.  Arrange her room. We have to purchase a Television exclusively for her to watch her favourite shows. If needed, let’s hire a cook”

My husband mentioned after a long silent drive for which I kept nodding in agreement adding on to it about her diet and exercises.   

Everything seemed to be so perfect as though nothing has happened.  Soon, the sky turned dark.  And in no time, the hovering thick clouds brought in the heavy showers.   At twelve noon, my husband stopped the car in the middle of the road, feeling a shiver down his spine.  I was taken aback by his strange behavior,  

“I am not able to drive”

The most unexpressive one, I had called him and this was the most serious and sensible emotion he was overpowered with. This definitely is an indication, I knew as I sensed turmoil with everything around us going haywire, seemingly aligning with our emotions.  The torrential rain descended and the dense fog clogged our way worsening the situation.  Was it an indication to something worse? Before my mind delved on further, my phone rang.  

“Where are you‘ll?  Drive slowly and be careful.  The roads are too slippery because of the rains”

I was about to hang up, just then I caught on the clue.  I was right. She had left us all, silently.  How strange, nature too has its own way of hinting us about the future in her own style at the right time with precise indications that we often fail! 

There on, everything was at a pace of a blink of an eye.  

The most desired end, what people call it and wish for.  But she alone knows what it was to be, being a woman, how it is to be the bread earner and then the struggles to bring up her two kids, making the ends meet followed with bouts of struggles, till she succeeded giving her kids a bright future.  Having it all done, finally, when she had just embarked on a journey to her twilight days to relax her weary limbs, life had something else in store for her.  Her lonesome days did not just end there; rather it continued to be with her till the pain she suffered lying unconscious in the confines of her secured home, left all alone to fight against the fate or to give in to the struggle.  And finally the struggle compelled her to choose a lonesome battle again bidding a good bye to her existence as a mother, as a mother-in-law and as a grandma.   

    

Her lonesome battle on her lonesome journey ended.  Having everyone, there was none beside her when she breathed her last.  Life, for her, had all the plans to set her out on another lonesome journey! Was this what life had in store for her?  Was it how it had to be?